Dr. King Holmes, world pioneer in sexually transmitted disease research and care, dies at age 87

Dr. King Kennard Holmes
Photo courtesy UW

UW Medicine infectious disease specialist Dr. King Kennard Holmes, who is credited with bringing the previously ignored field of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) to the forefront of medical research, died today, March 9, in Seattle after a long illness. He was 87.

Nearly single-handedly, he instigated and led the STI field into the modern scientific era.

“King K. Holmes was a visionary who saw the need and, during his nearly six decades at the University of Washington, blazed a path as the most effective proponent of this historic transition, arguably the single most productive investigator, and its most influential driver,” several of his colleagues wrote in a 2024 tribute in the journal Sexually Transmitted Diseases.

In the late 1960's, Dr. Holmes began his work on STIs in the U.S. Navy in Hawaii. He was assigned to stem an epidemic of penicillin-resistant gonorrhea that was widespread among sailors stationed in the western Pacific.

In the 1970s he joined the faculty of the University of Washington School of Medicine, where he established several STI research and patient care programs. It was an era of greater sexual openness, but also a time when transmission was on the rise and additional infections were being added to the list of STIs.

In the early 1980s, Dr. Holmes was one of the early researchers and clinical care experts during the start of the AIDS epidemic. He continued his efforts in HIV/AIDS care, research and advocacy locally, regionally and internationally throughout the rest of his career.

Dr. Holmes was Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Global Health and Professor Emeritus of Medicine in the Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. From 2007 to 2014, he was the founding chair of Global Health, a joint department of the University of Washington School of Medicine and UW School of Public Health.

Additional details on Dr. Holmes' life, and his influence on generations of trainees who also became leading figures in STI research, are on the UW Medicine Newsroom in his news obituary.